50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Part 8

GO DEEPER...

Books Graves, Joseph L. The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003.

Harrison, Guy P. Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know about Our Biological Diversity. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010.

Montagu, Ashley. Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 1997.

Other Sources Unnatural Causes...Is Inequality Making Us Sick? www.unnaturalcauses.org/media_and_doc.u.ments.php.

Vaccines can be credited with saving approximately nine million lives a year worldwide. A further sixteen million deaths a year could be prevented if effective vaccines were deployed against all potentially vaccine-preventable diseases. In all, vaccines have brought seven major human diseases under some degree of control: smallpox, diphtheria, teta.n.u.s, yellow fever, whooping cough, polio, and measles.

-UNICEF I'm feeling uneasy as the nurse prepares the syringe. Not that my precious little baby daughter or anyone else would ever know it. I'm upbeat, all smiles and jokes on the outside. But there is no denying the resentment smoldering within. I'm bothered because I'm trapped in a time period when the best medical science can do is stab my baby with a sharp piece of metal in order to get disease-preventing vaccines into her little body. Of course, I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not stuck in the time before vaccines. That was when half the children never made it to the age of five. I rub my daughter's head and force a smile as the nurse jabs a needle into her. "There, sweetheart, all done."

I can't remember if it was the DPT shot (for diphtheria, pertussis, teta.n.u.s) or MMR (for measles, mumps, rubella) that she received that day. I do, however, recall feeling troubled by more than just her temporary pain. It was 2002, and as a journalist who reads science news incessantly and often writes about science topics, I was well aware of the growing concerns and protests over vaccines. I understood that the claims of an autism-vaccine link were unproven, but I watch talk shows on TV too. I had heard the claims from mothers, some tearful and some enraged, that vaccines were responsible for their children's autism. I know the difference between anecdotes and credible scientific studies. I also know the difference between a Hollywood celebrity and a scientist. Still, I found it impossible to forget those pa.s.sionate warnings when it was my child about to get the shot. "What if they're right? What if there really is something wrong with vaccines and the scientists just haven't figured it out yet? What if I am about to make the biggest mistake of my life? What if I let this happen and it condemns my little girl to a diminished life?"

Fortunately, I reacted to the scary questions in my head by thinking. Emotions are wonderful; I love them. But when it comes to important decisions, I prefer a.n.a.lysis and reason to hunches and fears. I may have felt the possible threat of an autism-vaccine link, but I knew the reality of how vaccines protect children. There is no doubt that vaccines save the lives of millions of children each year and prevent many millions more from having to suffer through painful illnesses. I want my children to be on that side of the fence. How could I possibly send my daughter out into a dangerous world without protecting her from known killers such as measles and diphtheria? In the end, I decided it is far safer to go with the known and the proven over the unknown and the unproven-especially when my daughter's safety is the issue. A few celebrities and one or two renegade doctors don't match up favorably against the world's top epidemiologists. There are no guarantees, of course, but it would have been reckless and irresponsible of me to withhold a very important protection from my child based on unproven claims.

The decision to vaccinate my children has been vindicated by very solid science in the years since that uncomfortable moment with a nurse and my baby back in 2002. Since then, vaccines have continued to do their amazing work, quietly and without much fanfare. Every day, vaccines prevent the deaths of countless children worldwide. Vaccines may have saved my children's lives as well. Unfortunately, irrational fears about vaccines have not gone away.

Anyone who researches the supposed link between vaccines and autism is likely to be surprised by how one-sided the controversy is. I certainly was. Mainstream medical science has evidence and credible studies to show that vaccines are not linked to autism. Meanwhile, the antivaccine activists fight on, continuing to rely on nothing more than fear and misplaced rage.

It is difficult to criticize parents of autistic children who condemn vaccines when already they are so burdened by challenges. One might feel the urge to give them a break and let them do or say whatever they want. But they need to hear the truth too. And their protests against vaccines, no matter how well intentioned, can lead to the deaths of children. It's also tragic that some parents compound their problems by blaming medical science and then running into the clutches of quacks and con artists who are all too willing to sell them the latest flavor of snake oil. By blaming vaccines-without proof-parents are most likely pursuing a dead-end path and discouraging other parents from vaccinating their children. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that their hearts are in the right place, but their minds clearly are not. Attacking vaccines is not something to take lightly. Vaccines have probably saved more lives than any other form of medicine in history. One would think it would take a mountain of d.a.m.ning evidence to turn people against something with a track record like that. But apparently it takes only a little misinformation and a lot of fear because increasing numbers of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children. Today an estimated four out of ten parents in America choose not to give their children one or more recommended vaccines.1 DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.

Heated debates that pit science against pseudoscience-evolution versus creationism, for example-rage on and on. But few of them rack up casualties and have the potential for mayhem like the anti-vaccine controversy. This particular clash between reason and irrational belief is literally killing children right now. Vaccination rates have plunged in parts of America and the United Kingdom because of misinformation and unjustified fears. According to the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency, a drop in vaccination coverage levels has again made measles endemic in the UK after it had already been wiped out by vaccines decades ago.2 Much of the fears were stirred up in 1998 when British doctor Andrew Wakefield published research claiming that the measles vaccine causes autism. He said the vaccine inflamed intestines, causing harmful proteins to leak out that then made their way to the brain, where they caused autism.3 This generated considerable coverage in the mainstream media which, of course, sent waves of fear straight into the hearts of millions of parents. Many of them made the decision not to vaccinate their children as a result. Predictably, this was followed by outbreaks of preventable diseases that killed children. Soon after Wakefield's announcement, MMR vaccine rates dropped from nearly 90 percent to as low as 50 percent in some areas of London.4 Now comes the kicker: It turned out that Wakefield's research is garbage. Other scientists could not confirm his findings. Something was wrong, very wrong. But not only has his work been deemed scientifically flawed, it has ethical problems as well. Investigative journalist Brian Deer reported that Wakefield's study was funded by a lawyer who also was representing five of eight children used in the study for a suit against pharmaceutical companies. In 2010, the Lancet medical journal formally retracted Wakefield's study that they had published, and the General Medical Council removed Wakefield's name from the medical register. He can no longer practice medicine in England.5 In the late 1990s, antivaccination activists set their sights on a preservative used in some vaccines called thimerosal. No studies suggested that thimerosal might cause autism, but pharmaceutical companies removed it as a precaution anyway. Now, years later, autism rates have continued to rise. "After all the research," writes Michael Specter in his book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, "thimerosal may be the only substance we might say with some certainty doesn't cause autism; many public health officials have argued that it would make better sense to spend the energy and money searching for a more likely cause."6 Multiple studies have failed to find evidence of an autism-vaccine link. In j.a.pan, the feared MMR "vaccine c.o.c.ktail" was withdrawn and replaced by single vaccines. A study of thirty thousand children there found that autism rates continued to rise even in MMR's absence.7 Other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Sweden removed thimerosal from vaccines only to see autism rates continue to rise. Meanwhile, researchers in Finland looked for an autism-vaccine link by a.n.a.lyzing the medical records of more than two million children. They found nothing.8 It seems to me that vaccines are victims of their own success. People who are fortunate enough to live in countries with strong vaccination programs have been lulled into a false sense of security. Diseases once feared are not so scary anymore. Measles, for example, does not strike fear in the heart of the typical American. But it's not a disease we should take lightly. It causes brain swelling and high fever and is often fatal. In the past, measles killed millions in Europe and America. It still kills more than one million children per year in the developing world today.9 Nevertheless, many parents are being scared away from the measles vaccine by warnings with no credible science behind them. The percentage of unvaccinated children in the United States has doubled since 1991.10 This is as infuriating as it is absurd. We are moving backward.

Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is one of the world's leading experts on vaccines. He is also currently waging a professional war against the antivaccine movement. But it is also clearly personal for him. His frustration and concern for children are often readily apparent when he describes the irresponsible decision to deny vaccines. "The problem with waning immunization rates in the United States isn't theoretical anymore," he told me. "Recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, mumps, and bacterial meningitis show a clear breakdown in population immunity. Children are now suffering the diseases of their grandparents. It's unconscionable."11 MISPLACED FEARS.

"Caught in the middle are children," Offit writes in his book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. "Recent outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough, and bacterial meningitis have caused hundreds to suffer and some to die-die because their parents feared vaccines more than the disease they prevent."12 Maybe this would not have happened if more of us were aware of the constant a.s.sault we are under from dangerous viruses and bacteria. Microscopic monsters have killed far more people than all of history's wars combined. Some of the most important events in history involved disease. European contact with the New World, for example, is a story of germs and disease as much as or more than anything else. One thing is certain: too many people in the United States are unaware of their own recent history. Offit writes: In the early 1900s, children routinely suffered and died from diseases now easily prevented by vaccines.... Americans could expect that every year diphtheria would kill twelve thousand people, mostly children; rubella (German measles) would cause as many as twenty thousand babies to be born blind, deaf, or mentally disabled; polio would permanently paralyze fifteen thousand children and kill a thousand; and mumps would be a common cause of deafness. Because of vaccines, all these diseases have been completely or virtually eliminated. But now, because more and more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, some of these diseases are coming back.13 One likely reason for belief in an autism-vaccine connection is unfortunate timing. The first signs of autism often appear just around the time when children are getting routine vaccines. Parents, understandably, search for a cause for their child's disturbing symptoms, and vaccines seem a likely culprit. As often happens, however, correlation is easily confused with causation. Offit relates a story about a man who took his baby to get the DTP vaccine but after waiting in line for a time became tired and went home without ever getting the child vaccinated. Several hours later, the father discovered the baby had died in its crib, apparently of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. "One can only imagine what the father would have felt if [the baby] had received DTP several hours earlier. Presumably, no study would have convinced him of anything other than that the vaccine had killed his son.14 As a parent who once worried about vaccinating my own children, I sympathize with mothers and fathers who are not 100 percent sure what to do. I would advise parents who are worried about vaccines causing autism to play it safe and go with common sense and reason. Of course playing it safe means getting your children vaccinated. And it's only common sense and reasonable to protect your child from as many of the numerous diseases lurking out there as you can.

"THEY'RE NOT STUPID, JUST IGNORANT"

Nurse Shawn R. Browning is in the trenches on the frontlines of this issue. She has nearly two decades of experience in the medical field, most of it working with the US Navy. She regularly administers vaccines to military personnel and their families. She also has been involved with immunization education for many years. Irrational fears about vaccines are nothing new to her.

"I have had plenty of parents and patients that are misinformed about vaccines," she said. "When they tell me they don't want to get a particular vaccine, the first thing I ask them is, 'why'? I have heard everything from the thimerosal content is bad for you, vaccines cause autism-particularly the MMR vaccine-and everything in between. By law I give them the VIS [vaccine information statements], but in addition I also educate them on the pros of receiving the vaccine versus not. What I have learned is that more times than not, people are willing to get the vaccine once it is explained to them in words they can understand and relate to. They're not stupid, just ignorant. They have listened to their neighbors, the media, and everyone else and have formed an unjustified opinion. Drives me crazy! Many parents and patients have expressed their grat.i.tude that someone has taken the time to explain things instead of just sticking a needle in them without any explanation. I think our particular patient population is more vaccine hesitant than antivaccine."

Like most healthcare professionals, Browning is concerned that this reluctance to vaccinate might lead to major outbreaks of preventable diseases: The biggest fear is that preventable diseases will rise to epidemic proportions again. Infants and children are going to die or be disabled because adults are ignorant and won't vaccinate themselves or their children. The outbreak of pertussis [whooping cough] is the latest. People think that since they are adults, they don't need a vaccine. Yet how many die from complications from the flu every year? [Influenza virus, the flu, kills as many as five hundred thousand people each year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.15] It's very scary. We also have an obligation to get vaccinated to protect those [who] can't be vaccinated due to various reasons [such as immune system problems].

There was this mom [who] came into our clinic a little more than a year ago to get her one-year-old daughter her immunizations. The corpsman that brought them back to the room started to explain the vaccines the child would be getting and their potential side effects to the mom. The mom politely interrupted the corpsman and proceeded to explain that this child was not her first baby. She had once been "one of those moms" who didn't believe in vaccines, and her first little girl had died when she got the measles. Just how do you respond to that? Your heart breaks.16 Offit adds, "The science is largely complete. Ten epidemiological studies have shown MMR vaccine doesn't cause autism; six have shown thimerosal [preservative once used in vaccines] doesn't cause autism; three have shown thimerosal doesn't cause subtle neurological problems; a growing body of evidence now points to the genes that link to autism; and despite the removal of thimerosal from vaccines in 2001, the number of children with autism continues to rise."17 In 1997, 4,138 children entered California kindergartens without being vaccinated because they had exemptions. By 2008, that number had more than doubled. Parents citing religious or philosophical objections to having their children vaccinated are putting not only their own children at risk but the lives of many others as well.18 Babies who are too young to be vaccinated can be infected and die. Children who have immune system problems and cannot be vaccinated have to rely on others around them to be vaccinated in order to keep the diseases at bay. When vaccination rates drop, danger to these vulnerable groups increases. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert, a parent's decision to refuse vaccination means his or her child is thirty-five times more likely to get measles and twenty-two times more likely to come down with pertussis (whooping cough). Please don't think for a second that this is exaggeration or fearmongering. Children are paying a price for this madness in small pockets across America now, and the potential for much greater suffering is real. In April 2011, for example, a private school in Virginia had to close because half its students were infected with pertussis. None of the children had been vaccinated. Many of the parents had obtained religious exemptions that officially sanctioned their negligence.19 News of several recent infant deaths in California due to pertussis either had not reached those parents or failed to impress them.

Why subject children to this unnecessary danger? To protect them from autism? Very large, thorough, and expensive scientific studies did not find any reason to conclude that vaccines cause autism. Therefore it simply makes no sense to withhold such important protection from a child.

GO DEEPER...

Books Mnookin, Seth. The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Offit, Paul A. Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Offit, Paul A. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

Offit, Paul A., and Charlotte A. Moser. Vaccines and Your Child: Separating Fact from Fiction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.

Other Sources The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains an informative collection of articles and fact sheets about vaccines at www.cdc.gov/vaccines.

If G.o.d has spoken, why is the world not convinced?

-Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley Some books that promote science and skepticism dodge claims about G.o.ds being real. Not this one. While I understand that challenging belief in G.o.ds can be seen as rude or out of bounds, I feel that it makes no sense to take on UFOs and psychics when belief in G.o.ds makes a far greater impact on the world than those things. Unlike religion, for example, hatred, wars, and terrorism are not often inspired by belief in Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle. Yes, belief in G.o.ds is deeply important to billions of people. Yes, one ought to be aware of and respect, to a point, the emotional attachment many people have to their belief in the existence of a G.o.d or G.o.ds. But it only makes sense to try and ensure that something taken so seriously by so many people is actually valid in the first place. This is not, or should not be, a question for skeptics alone. Don't believers also want to know if their G.o.ds actually exist or not?

I hope readers who believe in a G.o.d or G.o.ds will not be offended by ideas raised in this chapter. Nothing here is meant to insult, only to provoke thought. Believers who respect truth and place a high value on reality should find nothing upsetting here. A common misconception is that nonbelievers claim to have disproved the existence of all G.o.ds. This is not accurate. I can't even imagine how one could do such a thing. For example, short of exploring the entire universe and all possible dimensions, how can anyone ever really know if the Aztec G.o.d Quetzalcoatl exists or not? The best a skeptic can do is point to the absence of proof and go from there.

It might help if believers recognized the common ground they share with nonbelievers. When it comes to G.o.ds, everyone is skeptical and everyone is a nonbeliever. It's just a matter of degree. I have met Muslims in the Middle East who were hardcore skeptics-about the claims of Hinduism and Buddhism. They were quick to point out many sound reasons to doubt the more extraordinary claims of those belief systems. I know a Jewish person who dismisses Mormonism as a collection of totally unsubstantiated claims put forth by a questionable source. South American Christians tell me that Islam fails the test of a.n.a.lysis and reason. Catholics have explained to me that Protestants are way off course and have failed to prove their claims. Some Protestants say the same about Catholics. Yes, when it comes to religion, every believer is a skeptic-almost. The only difference is that they stop a.n.a.lyzing, doubting, and asking questions when their thoughts arrive at the doorstep of their own religion. That's where critical thinking ends and faith begins.

THE G.o.dS MUST BE LAZY.

If only the G.o.ds had made the effort to clearly establish their existence and communicated their desires to everyone on Earth. How hard could that be for a G.o.d? But either the G.o.ds are not real or they have chosen to be elusive and utterly confusing, leaving us to spend thousands of years doubting, bickering, and slaughtering one another over religious differences. This conflict is impossible to escape given the state of religion: Millions of G.o.ds have been said to be real and none of them proven to exist. And there can be no compromise. At the very least, everyone must reject most G.o.ds. There is no person on Earth-alive today or at any time in the past-who would or could believe in every G.o.d. It is impossible to believe in all G.o.ds because n.o.body even knows all the G.o.ds. There are simply too many of them to keep up. People have declared so many G.o.ds to exist over the last several thousand years that n.o.body has been able to keep an accurate count, much less list names and attributes. These G.o.ds, and the hundreds of thousands of religions that proclaimed them to be real, are far too contradictory to be reconciled under one roof. Jesus either is the only way to heaven, or he is not. Allah is the one true G.o.d with no son, or he is not. There are millions of Hindu G.o.ds, or there are not. Ramses II either was a G.o.d, or he was not. Zeus was top G.o.d and really did hurl lightning bolts down from Mount Olympus, or he did not. (This could go on for thousands of pages, but I'm sure you get the point.) One or some of these G.o.ds may be real. Maybe none are real. What we can be sure of is that they cannot all be real. No wonder belief in G.o.ds has been a source of constant conflict throughout history.

What we can conclude from the mult.i.tude of claims for very different G.o.ds is that, at the very least, most believers must be wrong. This is just the way it sorts out and there is no getting around it. Do the math, either polytheists are wrong or monotheists are wrong, for example. The fact is, the majority of people today are missing the mark when it comes to G.o.ds and most people in the past got it wrong too. If Christianity is correct and Jesus/G.o.d the Father/The Holy Spirit are real, then that would mean the majority of people alive today and the vast majority of people who have ever lived were wrong. If Islam is true and Mohammed was correct about the Koran and Allah, then it would mean that the majority of people alive today and a majority of the people who have ever lived were wrong on the G.o.d issue. The same is true for every religion and every G.o.d claim. If somebody's h.e.l.l turns out to be real, it's going to be awfully full. And it will be filled mostly with religious people who got in line behind the wrong G.o.d.

Many people mistakenly believe that the popularity of G.o.d belief in general somehow validates their belief. Not so. In fact, the conflicting claims of so many beliefs casts suspicion on all of them. If my neighbor can be wrong, perhaps I can be wrong. Christianity, for example, is currently the world's most popular religion. That sounds impressive, but some 70 percent of the world's people are non-Christians. Muslims are a minority, too, at 21 percent. Hinduism is a major world religion, but only 14 percent of all people are Hindus. These conflicting minority belief systems do not validate or support one another.

In my book 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a G.o.d, I a.n.a.lyzed the most common justifications for belief that I heard from people in various religions around the world. I found it interesting that people defending very different belief systems would almost always rely on the same handful of justifications. For example, I have been told that answered prayers, miracles, divine healings, and feelings of joy "prove" the existence of a G.o.d. I have been told these things by Christians in Europe and the Americas; Muslims in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt; and Hindus in India and Nepal. Once again, somebody has to be wrong here. If a Hindu who successfully prays for a favor from Ganesha proves that Hindu G.o.ds are real, then why aren't the answered prayers of a Muslim proof that there is only one G.o.d? If a Christian and a Sikh pray for better jobs and then both get better jobs, whose prayer should we consider to be proof that Jesus is or is not the only way to salvation? Meanwhile, we have to consider why the past prayers of ancient peoples such as the Greeks and Romans are not compelling evidence for the existence of their long list of G.o.ds. They said prayer worked too.

It is the same with faith healing. I have spoken with a variety of believers in a variety of unique religions who a.s.sured me that their G.o.d or G.o.ds must be real because of some supernatural recovery from illness or injury that they experienced or witnessed. But I have attended faith healing services and was not impressed. When you consider the global/historical context and recognize that claims for divine healings have been taking place for thousands of years within numerous contradictory religions, it becomes clear that this is not good evidence for the existence of a G.o.d or G.o.ds.

No one claim for a G.o.d or G.o.ds holds a decisive advantage over all the others. Sure, many people within each belief system will say that theirs is true and all others false, but they are in a poor position to judge. It must be difficult to observe the religious landscape as it really is while standing inside the high walls of just one of them. From the nonbeliever's vantage point outside the walls, however, it easily comes into sharp focus. The great number of G.o.ds that we humans have confidently believed in since the dawn of history and probably deep into prehistory, suggest only one thing: we are a G.o.d-inventing species. We see divine beings everywhere and then imagine that we know their desires. The fact that there has never been agreement on who the real G.o.ds are and what they want of us hints to the likely source of our tales. The G.o.ds have not spoken to us. Most likely it is we who are simply speaking to one another, in their name.

GO DEEPER...

Books Chaline, Eric. The Book of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses: A Visual Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Deities. New York: It Books, 2004.

Harrison, Guy P. 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a G.o.d. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008.

Hemenway, Priya. Hindu G.o.ds. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2002.

Jordan, Michael. Dictionary of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. New York: Facts on File, 2004.

Kurtz, Paul. The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe. Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 2006.

Sagan, Carl. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for G.o.d. New York: Penguin, 2007.

Thompson, J. Anderson, and Clare Aukofer. Why We Believe in G.o.d(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith. Charlottesville, VA: Pitchstone Publis.h.i.+ng, 2011.

Other Sources The Atheist Experience, www.atheist-experience.com/archive/.

Letting Go of G.o.d (DVD), Julia Sweeney and Indefatigable, 2008.

Modern science is beginning to understand the neurological mechanisms that give rise to the religious experience of the believer. Given these results, the skeptic may present the believer with a simple question: How do you know that your religious experience is not a simple trick of your brain-the unfolding of a perfectly natural temporal lobe transient? How can you trust such an experience when, through science, we can convincingly mimic the face of G.o.d?

-David C. Noelle One of the world's most common and enduring beliefs is that one particular religion is true while all the many thousands of others are wrong. Of course, those who hold this view are always sure that it's their religion that happens to be the one that is correct. This is another belief that can be difficult to address due to a force field of traditional respect, legal protection, and the outright threat of violence that often surrounds it. Reaction varies by religion, context, time period, and society, but one might be considered rude for challenging the concept of religious favoritism, arrested or even killed for it. It is usually considered good manners, and safer, to simply duck this one while repeating the live-and-let-live cliche. Unfortunately, however, total confidence in one religion over all others encourages many bad things, from the Crusades to discrimination to suicide bombers. This makes religions fair game for all those who care about such things as peace and human rights.

So what is wrong with the claim that one religion is true and all others false? Three points reveal the problem with religious isolationism. First, we need to look at how people come to follow one religion over thousands of others. Second, we must explore the religious landscape as it really is, not as people tend to imagine it is. Finally, we need to address the problem of religious illiteracy. How can people judge their religion to be the most sensible and accurate of all when they know virtually nothing about any others?

RELIGIOUS INHERITANCE.

How do people choose a religion? They don't! The dirty little secret about religious belief is that it's imposed, not chosen, in almost every case. Very few believers voluntarily and consciously select their particular religion. The religion usually is introduced to a child by family members-without debate, questions, or consent-and then reinforced by the immediate social setting. This is clearly the case because we can look at the geography and family patterns of religious belief and see that the best predictors of a person's religious belief are what their parents believe and where they live. So if a person was born to Muslim parents and raised in Egypt or Syria, for example, the odds are very high that she or he will be a Muslim in adulthood. If a child has Buddhist parents and grows up in Thailand, it's likely that he or she will end up a Buddhist. It's nearly certain that a person raised by Christian parents in Mississippi will be a Christian. If one is born in a small village in Papua New Guinea, most likely she will not be a Scientologist or Raelian. If one is born and raised in Pakistan, chances are not good for becoming a Baptist. What this shows is that very few of the world's people are doing much thinking, if any, when they first become tied to a religion. There is virtually no comparison shopping going on when it comes to the adoption of religions throughout the global population. There is no weighing of evidence and a.s.sessing of arguments. There is no time given for fair hearings of alternative beliefs or counter explanations for religious claims. In almost every case religion is a family and social inheritance that the individual has little say in. For typical believers, religious loyalties develop early in life and within the context of trusting authority figures. These beliefs are able to grow deep roots in relative isolation, safe from challenge. Then the confirmation bias protects the imposed belief, as observations and arguments that seem to support their religion are embraced while everything that supports rival religions or casts doubt upon all religion is ignored or trivialized. There may be movement within religions by individuals, from Catholic to Protestant or from fundamentalist Muslim to casual Muslim, for example. But allegiance to the original primary religion does not change for most people.

This religious enculturation, some call it indoctrination, should concern those who grew up within the psychological coc.o.o.n of one particular belief system and now find themselves confident that this religion happens to be the one that is true above all others. Let's not forget that Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and all other believers are humans first. And as humans, they are vulnerable to the same errors in reasoning. For example, it is not difficult for me to imagine what likely would have happened if I grew up in India, was raised by loving Hindu parents who taught me all about the G.o.ds, lore, and rituals of that particular belief system. By the time I reached adulthood, it is very likely that I would have a strong bias favoring belief in Hinduism. I probably would view Hinduism as the best religion, even if I knew little about all the others that exist today and existed in the past. Maybe I would one day embrace skepticism and begin to have doubts. If that happened, however, my struggle likely would be between Hinduism and atheism with little or no thought given to Christianity, Islam, or any other religion.

I believe that it would be constructive for all believers with total confidence in their religions to imagine what their mind-sets might be if they had been born into different societies, with different parents, and raised to be loyal to a different religion. Hopefully people can recognize that simply being taught one religion and no others early in life is not a of the world's people reasonable justification for believing that your religion is best and makes more sense than all the others. The logic is not so different from a sports fan loving a hometown football team he or she grew up with and supporting it through the years, no matter what happens on the field each season. Such feelings and actions are more about geography and childhood loyalties than any rational or logical decision making.

THE REAL RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE.

A second key reason that many people believe their religion is the right one is the failure to see religions as they are and not how they are imagined to be. I am convinced that if people were aware of the basic numbers, structure, and history of contemporary religions, they would find it much more difficult to dismiss or look down on rival belief systems. I have interviewed and had conversations with a variety of believers around the world who are under the false impression that the general popularity of belief in G.o.ds somehow gives credibility to their particular religion over all others. "Most people are religious, therefore my religion must be true," is the popular idea. But this makes no sense. First of all, reality and truth are not determined by popularity contests. Even if every human who ever lived believed in fairies, it would not mean they are necessarily real. To know if something is real, we can't rely on a show of hands. We have to a.s.sess the evidence. An abundance of believers in a G.o.d or G.o.ds does not mean any G.o.ds necessarily exist. Yes, religion has been near universal throughout history. Humans have created hundreds of thousands of religions and claimed the existence of hundreds of millions of unique G.o.ds. But no proof for G.o.ds is to be found in these numbers. If anything, it is a compelling argument for the likelihood that all G.o.ds were invented. More to the point, key contradictions between those hundreds of thousands of religions do not help make the case for any single belief system being correct. One billion Hindus believing in millions of G.o.ds does not reinforce the claims of 1.5 billion monotheistic Muslims, for example. The disharmony among believers today and throughout the past suggests just one thing: we look very much like a species that loves to make up G.o.ds and invent religions.

WHY DO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT RELIGION?.

Ignorance is the greatest reason so many people are able to confidently declare that their religion is true while all others fall short. What could be easier than to feel superior about your belief system when you know little or nothing about all other belief systems? It would be easy to believe hamburgers were the best food in the world if you had never tasted any other food. To be clear, this is not about anyone's intelligence. This is about curiosity, awareness, and educational opportunities. We may live in a world teeming with religion, but most people do not know basic facts about the world's current most popular religions, and even their own religion in many cases. Strangely, religion is hailed by billions of people as something very important and necessary in our lives. Believers say it has profound implications for life, death, and even eternity-yet almost no one understands it.

Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero addresses the problem in his book Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know-And Doesn't: Today religious illiteracy is at least as pervasive as cultural illiteracy, and certainly more dangerous. Religious illiteracy is more dangerous because religion is the most volatile const.i.tuent of culture, because religion has been, in addition to being one of the greatest forces for good in world history, one of the greatest forces for evil. Whereas ignorance of the term Achilles' heel may cause us to be confused about the outcome of the Super Bowl or a statewide election, ignorance about Christian Crusades and Muslim martyrdom can be literally lethal.1 Former president George W. Bush demonstrated the dangers that can come from religious ignorance in a religious world. Bush said shortly after the 9/11 attacks that he would respond to the terrorists by launching a "crusade." Apparently he was unaware of the religion-based ill-will and suspicions that come when a Christian leader uses the term crusade when talking about Muslims. Bush then ordered the invasion of Iraq without knowing anything about the historic tensions between Sunni and s.h.i.+a Muslims. In fact, he did not seem to have ever heard of Sunni and s.h.i.+a Muslims. Even the most basic superficial knowledge about Islam and its history might have meant better planning and fewer lives lost in postinvasion Iraq.

So just how bad is the problem of religious ignorance? In 2010, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a survey of Americans' knowledge of religion. Here is some of what was revealed:2 About half of Protestants (53 percent) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity.

More than four in ten Catholics in the United States (45 percent) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

Roughly four in ten Jews (43 percent) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

Fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist.

Fewer than four in ten (38 percent) correctly a.s.sociate Vishnu and s.h.i.+va with Hinduism.

Atheists and agnostics scored the highest on a general religion knowledge quiz, outperforming believers.

Only about a quarter of all Americans (27 percent) correctly answer that most people in Indonesia-the country with the world's largest Muslim population-are Muslims.

A disturbing picture to be sure, and not exclusively an American problem. During my travels I encountered stunning religious ignorance in virtually every society I visited. The problem is global, and the cause of it seems obvious to me. There is an arrogant confidence that seems inevitable when a person is immersed in one religion from childhood and constantly a.s.sured by authority figures that it is the true one. This process likely discourages investigation and curiosity toward other belief systems and nonbelief. There also is far too little competent religious education for young students in most schools. Rare is the school that presents even the basic facts and history of a variety of religions. In most societies such cla.s.ses are usually limited to more sophisticated high schools or offered as university electives. The world's children need to be taught early on about religions in an unbiased and academically competent manner. They should get some exposure to the scholarly history of today's more popular religions as well as some religions of the past. This is vital to having a chance of a clear and sensible worldview. One can never really understand world history or current events very well without a minimal understanding of religions given their impact on the world.

A final point for readers to consider is that if one particular religion were really right and all others wrong, then it seems reasonable to think that this particular religion would stand apart from its rivals in some obvious way. Wouldn't there be a global rush toward this one belief that everyone could see was delivering the supernatural goods? But nothing like this has ever happened and it's not happening now. Even Christianity, the current most popular religion, is fractured into tens of thousands of contradictory versions and the majority of the world's people are non-Christians. The fact is, not one religion has ever produced sufficient evidence or compelling arguments to attract most people. Imagine if the claims of one belief system were confirmed in the real world in a way that all of us could see and know to be credible. What if one religion really did boast meaningful and unambiguous predictions that anyone could clearly see came true? What if it could point to numerous scientifically confirmed faith healings, or miracles like lost limbs regenerating in seconds, or corpses coming back to life after being dead for years? If a religion could point to answered prayers that occurred at a rate that could not be explained by chance or faulty interpretation, that religion would win out overnight. Such a religion likely would leave all its rivals in the dust and become the dominant, if not the only, remaining belief system in the world within a generation or two. Every sane person on the planet would run to it. The fact that this has not occurred is a very good indication that no one religion is obviously true or superior to all the others.

GO DEEPER...

Books Daniels, Kenneth. Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary. Duncanville, TX: Daniels, 2009.

Dawkins, Richard, and Dave McKean. The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True. New York: Free Press, 2011.

Epstein, Greg. Good without G.o.d: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2010.

Farr-Wharton, Jake. Letters to Christian Leaders. Queensland, Australia: Dangerous Little Books, 2011.

Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Vintage, 2008.

Harrison, Guy P. 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a G.o.d. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008.

Head, Tom, ed. Conversations with Carl Sagan. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

Loftus, John. The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010.

Prothero, Stephen. G.o.d Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World-And Why Their Differences Matter. New York: HarperOne, 2007.

Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know-And Doesn't. New York: HarperOne, 2008.

Wilkinson, Phillip. Myths and Legends. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2009.

Zuckerman, Phil. Society without G.o.d: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment. New York: NYU Press, 2010.

Other Sources Free Inquiry (magazine).

Religulous (DVD), Lions Gate, 2009.

The Non Prophets (podcast), www.nonprophetsradio.com.

There are now tens of thousands of hominid fossils in museums around the world supporting our current knowledge of human evolution. The pattern that emerges from this vast body of hard evidence is consistent across thousands of investigations. All models, all myths involving the singular, instantaneous creation of modern humans fail in the face of this evidence.

-Dr. Tim White Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-Philip K. d.i.c.k, How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later One of the most difficult challenges many religions face is figuring out how their supernatural claims can be aligned with the natural world in a way followers can accept as sensible. The relentless progress of discovery and science has made this increasingly difficult. There was a time, for example, when one could get away with pointing at the ball of fire in the sky and declare it to be a G.o.d. That's not so easy to do these days because science has revealed, based on evidence, that the Sun is a giant ball of fire fueled by the fusion of hydrogen and helium atoms-nothing supernatural about it. Over the last few decades or so this struggle between religious claims and the natural universe that science continues to reveal has been most visible and most contentious in the evolution-versus-creationism conflict.

Creationism is most often defined as the religious belief that the Judeo-Christian G.o.d created the universe, Earth, and all life as described in the Genesis story. It has to be made clear, however, that while this version of creationism may get all the attention in the United States, and Europe, it is in fact only one of many. Through prehistory, history and up until today there have been many thousands of unique creation stories-none of which can be fairly judged to be superior to the others based on evidence. It is also important to note that creation stories are not scientific and were not discovered by scientific means-although many people claim otherwise. They come to us, as most believers say, by divine revelation in a book or in some other form of spiritual enlightenment.

Creationists traditionally have claimed that Earth and all life on it are less than ten thousand years old, usually around six thousand years old. Today some creationists have retreated a bit and admit that this is obviously wrong and accept the evidence-based or scientific age of Earth, which is around 4.5 billion years. They are called "young Earth creationists" and "old Earth creationists" respectively. Many old and young Earth creationists, however, believe that their religious origin story should be taught in schools, masquerading as science. Of course this presents a problem in the United States because the Const.i.tution forbids the government from promoting religion, and teaching the Genesis story to children in government schools is obviously the promotion of religion.

The specific conflict with evolution comes into play since creationists claim that G.o.d created all life in just one week and in present form. According to them, there were no dinosaurs evolving into birds, no long road to a planet teeming with biodiversity, and absolutely no australopithecines evolving into modern humans. That's not how the Torah, Bible, or Koran says it happened so that's not how it happened, they declare, and evidence to the contrary be d.a.m.ned.

I asked paleontologist Jack Horner, the famed dinosaur hunter who has made some of the most spectacular paleontological discoveries ever, why the acceptance of evolution continues to be a sticking point for so many people. Rather than blame parents, teachers, and preachers, Horner looks in the mirror.

"I think it is a problem for the scientists more than those opposed to evolution," he said. "Scientists have done a bad job in teaching people what evolution is. I think it's about time for us to figure out how to teach it to people. [Evolution] has to do with similarities. We look at the human being and we look at the ape and we can see that they share more common features with each other than they do with anything else. So, just like with a brother and a sister, we can a.s.sume that they have a common ancestor. That's really all there is to it.

"Now the proof of evolution is the mere fact that you are different from your parents. That's all evolution is about," Horner continued. "Charles Darwin's theory is descent with modification-and selection. If you are different from your parents, then you cannot argue with evolution. And if you can see that we can select characters [or traits] and the environment can select characters, and you can start with a wolf and end up with a Chihuahua, then you believe in selection and you can't argue with Charles Darwin's theory."1 While some who appreciate the value of modern science find it difficult not to give up on creationists, I try to be more understanding. In my opinion, creationism is not dependent upon a lack of intelligence. Nothing more than reason gone a bit astray combined with a little confirmation bias allow it to thrive even in very bright minds. Given the right circ.u.mstances, it can happen to just about anyone. Creationists have allowed religious belief to cloud their judgment about reality and, given the emotional attachment people often have to their religion, this should not be surprising to anyone. I never a.s.sume that creationists are chronically dim because I have met too many of them who are obviously highly intelligent. The key problem is that creationists fail to recognize or choose to ignore the difference between science and pseudoscientific claims pushed by people who are not experts and have no evidence behind them. Further, most creationists have been bamboozled by appeals to their religious loyalty into seeing only an unnecessarily restrictive version of their religion and nothing else.

Many creationists have pinned themselves under a false choice that says they must choose between their G.o.d and modern science. Of course this is not necessarily the case, as proven every day by the many millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, and so on who are able to accept evolution without abandoning their religion. Many religious leaders have openly stated that adhering to antiscience creationist claims is not necessary for one to be sincerely religious. You really can have your religion and keep your mind when it comes to the evolution issue. Even the late pope John Paul II declared in 1996 that evolution was obviously true. He certainly was not suggesting that anyone had to stop believing in G.o.d in order to better align him-or herself with modern science. He was saying, correctly, that one can believe in G.o.d and accept evolution. There was, after all, a time when it was a life-threatening heresy to accept that Earth was not the center of the universe. In time believers got over it, of course, and today the location of Earth in s.p.a.ce is not seen as a litmus test for belief in a G.o.d. So it likely will be with Darwin's theory of evolution one day. At some point in the future the obvious fact that life evolves will have no bearing on religious belief and everyone will accept it.

A large part of the problem is that creationists misunderstand what the theory of evolution is and is not. Evolution is the description of how life changes over time, primarily because of genetic mutation and natural selection. The theory of evolution is not and has never been a declaration that no G.o.ds can possibly exist. The theory of evolution has nothing to say about G.o.ds, only that natural processes, given enough time, can bring about profound changes in life-forms and produce a richness of biodiversity such as we see here on our planet. This point has frustrated me greatly over the years, as I have interacted with creationists of various religions around the world. It seems to me that creationists do not really have a problem with evolution, even if they do understand it. They don't reject it because the theory, the fossils, and the genetic evidence fail to convince them. They refuse to accept evolution-or even give it a fair hearing-because they mistakenly believe doing so would mean they have to give up their religious belief. This is profoundly untrue. Admittedly, those who believe Earth is six thousand years old and all species were created at the same time would have to make some adjustments. In most cases, however, one can accept the findings of modern science and still keep one's religious beliefs. Religions adapt to change all the time, anyway. No matter how rigid and entrenched they may pretend to be, the reality is that religions are infinitely flexible. That's why we see tens of thousands of versions of Christianity today, for example.

Donald Johanson, discoverer of the famous Lucy fossils, says believing in a particular creation story depends on where, when, and by whom one is educated into the world. Evolution, however, is evidence-based and therefore, universal.

"There are two very different ways to try [to] explain our human existence," Johanson told me. "One of them is the faith-based endeavor and that depends exclusively on how one is raised. If you are raised as Hopi Indian, then you will learn the myths of creation of the Hopi Indians. You will believe that creation story is the true story. If you are raised in a tribe in South America, you will believe that story is the truth. And if you are raised as a Catholic, then you will believe that is the true answer. All of that is based on experience, how you grow up, and how you are taught. It is based on faith. We don't subject religious ideas to the same rigorous investigation as scientific issues. Regarding evolution, we are looking at the scientific evidence for how we came to be who we are today. It is a fact of the natural world that all animals, plants, and insects have gone through a process of evolution by means of natural selection. We don't look at gravity, which is a fact, and ask if it is moral or immoral. It is simply a fact."2 Creationism makes the extraordinary claim that a G.o.d magically created all bacteria, algae, fungi, plant, animal, and virus species instantly and in present forms. This would mean that no species have ever evolved or are evolving currently. Observation and evidence do not back this up, of course. In light of the fossil record, genetic discoveries, and real-time observations of evolving microbes, plants, and insects, creationism is not so much wrong as utterly bizarre. Once again, to be clear, this does not necessarily mean that anyone's G.o.d does not exist. But the specific creationist description of life is about as far off base as claiming the world's geologists are all wrong and Earth is actually flat. The disagreement between creationism and modern science is not even close enough for compromise, truce, or reconciliation. The sides are just too far apart for an amicable settlement. I suspect that the majority of creationists just do not realize how far out of line with the scientific evidence one has to be to hold such a position. Consider that a creationist must effectively reject all modern biology because evolution is the central theory of that entire discipline. The study and understanding of everything from microbes to whales to redwoods is fatally compromised if evolution is omitted. It would be like trying to explain libraries without ever mentioning books. It's impossible. But it's not just biology that must be sacrificed. If evolution goes, you can also forget about zoology, anthropology, comparative anatomy, marine biology, entomology, herpetology, microbiology, embryology, paleontology, and so on. And don't forget that evolution is the foundation of modern agriculture as well as vital areas of modern medical science. In order to have a good chance of working, for example, vaccines and antibiotics have to be formulated with a close eye on evolving viruses and bacteria. Furthermore, in order to believe that Earth is less than ten thousand years old, one must reject fundamental core discoveries and conclusions of geology, astronomy, cosmology, physics, and archaeology.

Regarding the time factor, young Earth creationists would do well to pause and consider just how six thousand years compares to 4.5 billion years. Claiming that Earth six thousand years old is like saying that the distance from Earth to the Moon is a few inches. It's not just wrong, it's outrageously wrong. Contrary to creationist propaganda, there is no debate about whether or not life evolves within the scientific community. This entire creationism-versus-evolution thing is a culture/religious war, which explains why its battles are fought in courtrooms, political campaigns, and school board meetings rather than at science conferences, in laboratories, and in academic journals.